cover image Christopher Park

Christopher Park

Rosemary Clement. Delphinium Books, $20 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-883285-00-5

Set in 1960, Clement's first novel chronicles several significant months in the life of Claire DeStefano. Leaving her close-knit Italian-American family and her suburban Cleveland home behind, recent college graduate Claire takes a teaching job in Christopher Park, a small town in rural Oklahoma. There, she encounters numerous local eccentrics, attempts to improve the lot of a sexually abused teenager and copes with an emotionally unstable teaching colleague. She also has her first real love affair, with wise, sexy Leon, the town's hard-drinking newspaperman. Engaging, though rambling, the plot drifts from one event to the next, offering a compassionate view of a young woman's coming of age. Except for an occasional blast of breathless pretentiousness (`` `You should have warned me when I was five that you have to break new ground every day,' '' she says to her mother), the writing is earnest and forthright. (Nov.)